HISTORY

ORIGIN OF THE WORD BBQ (from wikipedia.com)

Most etymologists believe that barbecue derives ultimately from the word barbacoa found in the language of the Taínopeople of the Caribbean. The word translates as sacred fire pit and is also spelled barbacoa.[2]The word describes a grill for cooking meat, consisting of a wooden platform resting on sticks.

Traditional barbacoainvolves digging a hole in the ground and placing some meat (usually a whole goat) with a pot underneath it, so that the juices can make a hearty broth. It is then covered with magueyleaves and coal and set alight. The cooking process takes a few hours.

There is ample evidence that both the word and cooking technique migrated out of the Caribbean and into other cultures and languages, with the word moving from Caribbean dialects into Spanish, then French and English. The Oxford English Dictionary cites the first recorded use of the word in the English language in 1697 by the British buccaneer William Dampier. [3]

The word evolved into its modern English spelling of barbecue and may also be found spelled as "barbeque", bar-b-q or bbq.[4] In the south eastern United States, the word barbecue is used predominantly as a noun referring to roastpork, while in the southwestern states cuts of beefare often cooked.

The word barbecue has attracted two inaccurate origins from folk etymology. An often-repeated claim is that the word is derived from the French language. The story goes that French visitors to the Caribbean saw a pig being cooked whole and described the method as barbe à queue, meaning from beard to tail. The French word for barbecue is also barbecue and the "beard to tail" explanation is regarded as false by most language experts. The only merit is that it relies on the similar sound of the words, a feature common in folk etymology explanations.[5] Another claim states that the word BBQ came from the time when roadhousesand beer joints with pooltables advertised Bar, Beer and Cues. According to this tale, the phrase was shortened over time to BBCue, then BBQ.[6]